Kidnap foreigners for prisoner exchange: Al Quida

A senior al-Qaida official has called on the Taliban to wage a campaign of kidnapping foreign civilians in Afghanistan in order to force

US-led forces to negotiate prisoner exchanges, Australian media reported.

The directive has been issued by veteran al-Qaida adviser Mustafa Hamid, also known as Abu Walid al Masri, and stems from the US detentions in Guantanamo Bay.

Farrall, who had worked for the Australian Federal Police, said she had uncovered the al-Qaida internet document, written in late July, while completing a PhD on al-Qaida at Monash University in Australia.

"Directing his article at the Taliban's leadership, Masri said it was time for them to start targeting foreign civilians as well as military personnel," Farrall wrote in the Australian.

"He suggested that they, too, change the rules of the game as America had done. He told them it was permissible to now start taking foreign civilians from the street.

Using this strategy, he advised, could result in the liberation of all prisoners held by America in its war on terror," she said.

"Masri argued America's detention and torture of Muslims, and its failure to distinguish between civilians and the military, justified the use of this new strategy. He said the Taliban should do as its enemy does."
British journalist Farrell was freed, but his colleague was killed in a rescue raid in early September. Farrall said the article was the first public sanction by any senior militant figure of a systematic, long-term kidnapping campaign targeting civilians and military personnel in direct response to US detention policy in its war on terror.